Himala
by cojiesmama
Summary: My first CSINY fanfic that's related to my Filipino heritage. DL all the way.
1. Introduction

INTRODUCTION:

The Filipino's greatest asset is also his biggest liability --- his fanaticism of faith.

The Filipinos have a long history of cruel colonizers, neglectful politicians and monopolizing capitalists that the Filipinos lives' have been brought deeper and deeper intro poverty. They have learned to hold onto anything, even the extraordinary, to believe that there is hope in living.

In the Philippines, there are multitudes of "mediums", people who claim that God is working through them, that various Catholic deities, from Jesus Christ to Mother Mary to the Apostles, even God himself is "speaking" through their bodies and using their hands to heal people.

A Filipino mother who has a sick child, for example, will most likely take the youngling to a "medium" than to a doctor. And even if she does take her child to the doctor, she will still take him/her to the "medium" --- just to make sure.

It is this Filipino culture that inspired me to write this fan fic.

"Himala" is Filipino for "Miracle".


	2. Chapter 1

In his trembling hand is his standard issue Glock. And at the end of the barrel is the woman he loves.

But she too had a gun in her hand. It was practically in his face. The look in her eyes was both of anger and fear, a look he had never seen on her before.

She was protecting a young man, a Filipino boy, about the age of twelve. She sprawled her tiny body across the boy like a shield. Like the man before her was the devil himself.

"Drop your gun" she said, her voice breaking.

"Listen to me" he said "He's in your head."

"You're going to hurt him" she screamed.

"Listen to me!" he screamed back "You have the patch. I saw it. You're not yourself. You know what it does to people"

"If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out" the boy said.

"Don't listen to him!" he screamed.

But she had cocked the gun.

"Walk away" she was practically in tears "Please…. Don't make me do this".

He couldn't believe the next movement of his own hand. He cocks his gun as well.

"As charcoal is to burning coals and wood to fire….." the boy spoke again

"Shut up!" he screamed and pointed the gun at the boy.

"….So is a contentious man kindle to strife" the boy continued.

And then she fired her gun.

The bullet whizzed past his head. He felt a burning sensation on his left ear. He touched the warm, moist spot on his ear and saw blood in his hands. He turned to look at her. She was crying profusely, gun still trained towards him.

"Please…. Don't make me shoot you" she said almost in a whisper, almost begging him.

He slowly lowered his gun. He saw relief in her eyes as she slowly lowered her gun as well.

But then he took her by surprise. He raised his gun swiftly and fired a shot.

The boy behind her fell on his back. The boy was unconscious. She spun around, ready to shoot, but he acted first. Another gunshot is fired.

Lindsay Monroe clutched the hole on her stomach as her heartbroken eyes looked at her shooter, Danny Messer. Lindsay lets go of her gun as she collapses on the floor.

Danny rushes to her side.


	3. Chapter 2

Twelve hours earlier.

"Oh, God" Lindsay said under her breath.

Like a twisted little joke by nature, perhaps God himself, Lindsay Monroe processed her fourth suicide-like crime scene this month.

Ironic. Just last night she sat in her bed with a handful of sleeping pills, trying to get the voices in her head to shut up. But then she got the call out.

As her camera's light bulb flashed, she assesses the crime scene and concludes why this case has been ruled out as a suicide. Young woman had slashes on her wrists. But she had bruises --- just above the wrists and on her arms. She was a lovely Asian woman, probably just out of her teens.

"What you got, Montana"

Lindsay turned around and she felt both better and worse. Danny Messer walks in the door, in the green long sleeves shirt which is Lindsay's favorite.

She felt better because Danny is the sweetest creature in the world --- a contrast to his brusque exterior --- who never failed to show just how much he liked her, even to just throw a random compliment.

And she also felt worse because she couldn't reciprocate that sweetness into something more than everyday, work-related flirting.

See, Lindsay has a deep dark secret. A secret that has damaged her insides, in more ways than one.

"Suicide vic apparently" Lindsay said, pointing to the spread-eagled woman on the floor. "Name's Catherine delos Reyes".

"Delos Reyes" Danny said. "Mexican? Spanish?"

Lindsay stood up and scanned the room. She looked at the kitchen. "Filipino".

"You can tell by just looking at the kitchen?" Danny said as he swabbed the blood on Catherine's wrists.

"Engraving of The Last Supper" Lindsay said, pointing at the mural hanging above the fridge.

Danny laughed. "There's a mural on the wall and you think she's Filipino".

"I had a Filipino rape case in Montana" Lindsay answered "All the tell-tale signs are here. Rice cooker on the counter top. We got some dried mangoes here. And my personal favorite" Lindsay picks up a small bottle filled with a reddish brown paste "Shrimp paste. Here, take a sniff"

Danny stands up and takes a whiff of the bottle. He immediately recoils in disgust. The shrimp paste smelled of decomposing fish mixed with salt. Lindsay laughs.

"Ugh! Why'd you have to do that?" Danny said.

"You should try this with tuna and lemon grass. Phenomenal" Lindsay takes a sniff and then closes the bottle.

"Pass" Danny said. He sees something on the floor, a circular white paper of some kind, about half an inch in diameter.

"What the hell is this?" Danny asked. "Sticky substance on one side".

Lindsay walks up to him --- almost too closely, but Danny doesn't mind --- and looks at the object. "Odorless. Let's get that back to trace".

"Who found the vic?" Danny asked as he put the circular paper in an evidence envelope.

"Fiancee, Edward Bledel" Lindsay said.

The man Lindsay pointed to was an overweight, unattractive man. He looked close to 240 lbs. He also looked like he was in his fifties.

Danny looked at Catherine's corpse and looked at the man. Danny's eyebrows frowned. "You're kidding".

"Only means one thing" Lindsay said.

"Mail-order bride" Danny concluded.

Lindsay makes a search of the woman's pockets. She found her wallet, with a California ID. "This ID's fake" Lindsay said. "It's made of cheap plastic, too light. And the colors have too much contrast, like it was photocopied".

"Illegal immigrant." Danny said "Forced to marry Jabba the Hut for a visa".

"This will up the weirdness factor" Lindsay pulls Danny by the arm, towards the door. At the end of the hall, on a bench, sat a 12-year old boy. He looked skinny and frail. He had an odd calmness in his face.

"When Edward Bledel found the body, that boy was looming over it, blood in his hands" Lindsay said, pointing to the boy.

"What's so weird about that?" Danny asked.

"That boy" Lindsay said, looking at Danny for a reaction "claims that he's Jesus Christ"


	4. Chapter 3

"Another young woman" Hammerback sighed.

Danny just nodded his head. Sid Hammerback usually found a way to inject humor into something as horrible as death. But whenever he gets a little girl or boy on his slab, he just can't see the humor in it.

"What can you tell me about her?" Danny said.

"COD is exsanguination. She bled to death" Hammerback answered. "But this is what I found peculiar"

Hammerback took a magnifying lens and showed the corpse's right wrist to Danny. "The cuts weren't deep enough to sever an artery."

"So the slashes on her wrists didn't cause her death?" Danny said.

"See these bruises on her arms?" Sid showed Danny "Ante-mortem. Someone squeezed the blood out of her"

Danny looks at bruises. She seemed to have deep nail marks on her arms. "Someone sped up the suicide" he turns back to Sid. "They did find her with a young boy by her side. Maybe he was trying to revive her? Didn't know where to apply pressure?"

"How old is the boy?" Sid asked.

"About 11 or 12" Danny answered.

"Do those bruises look like a 12-year-old's hands to you?" Sid said.

"The husband maybe" Danny whispered. "Anything else?"

"I collected a sexual assault kit" Sid said "Found sexual activity, and more…"

"Define more" Danny said, crossing his arms.

"She had Chlamydia" Sid said. "The infection has pretty much spread to her rectum"

Danny made a disgusting face. "She does have a fiancé" he said "Maybe she gave him the disease, that gives him motive"

"Thanks Doc" Danny turns to leave.

"Hold on, there's more" Sid said. He turns the corpse on its side and shows Danny the victim's nape. "Found a sticky substance on her nape. And what appears to be a chemical burn"

Danny takes a peek at the victim's nape. He takes a swab and gets a sample. "Chemical burn is a circular pattern. I recovered a small circular piece of paper with this substance."

"The plot thickens" Hammerback said, his eyes peaking above his glasses.


	5. Chapter 4

The young boy sat silently in the NYPD lobby as Lindsay analyzed the crime scene photo of Catherine delos Reyes' arm. As Hammerback had thought, the size of the boy's hands was too small to make the bruises on the victim's arm.

Lindsay looked at the boy's eyes. They were brown and big. He was generally motionless except for the swinging of his legs under his seat. He didn't look like a typical New York raised American boy --- he was four feet tall, he didn't look like he was into sports. But there it was again, a calmness in his face, a peace Lindsay had never seen before.

"What's your name?" Lindsay asked.

The boy turned to her. "Manuel Constantino"

"What were you doing at that woman's apartment, Manuel?" Lindsay asked, bending towards the boy as he spoke a little to softly.

"I wanted to save Catherine" Manuel answered.

"Did you touch her?" Lindsay continued.

"I thought I did" Manuel answered. He turned to Lindsay "She lived a life of suffering"

Lindsay took a swab from her pocket. "Manuel, I'm going to need to…."

"You have suffered, too" Manuel cut her off. "It has been years"

Lindsay looked at him, baffled. "You said a while ago that you were Christ. Are you?"

"I was" Manuel answered "But he's not here right now. He left." The boy smiles. "He never forgets to say thank you."

Lindsay shakes her head. "You're going to talk to a doctor, Manuel, about these voices in your head."

"Have you?" Manuel asked her.

"Have I done what?" Lindsay said.

"Talked to anyone. About the voices." Manuel said. "You have suffered for years, and now you need an answer."

Lindsay looked at him annoyed as she swabs the boy's fingernails. She was about to say something but Manuel found his voice first.

"Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted" Manuel said.

"Manuel!"

A woman from across the room comes runs towards Lindsay and Manuel. The woman hugs the boy.

"I am his mother, Ester" the woman said in stammering English. "He's not, uh, guilty of death of Cathy."

"Mrs. Constantino, we will have to keep him here until the evidence clears him" Lindsay answered. She turns around and she sees the dead woman's fiancé, Edward Bledel, thundering towards them, yelling at the boy.

"You!" Edward screamed as he lounged for the boy's neck. "You killed my girlfriend! You hack!"

Lindsay did her best to fight off the huge man and pulled him off of the boy. She kept saying "Sir, calm down, sir" but Edward Bledel was pushing her, almost scratching her arms. Good thing Danny was turning the corner.

Seeing Lindsay being assaulted by a man made Danny see red.

Danny grabs Edward Bledel's arm and slams him on the wall, twisting his arm. "How about you calm down there, sir. You just assaulted a police officer….one of the pretty ones."

Lindsay just shook her head. She turns around and checks on the boy "Are you alright, Manuel?"

The boy smiles at her. "Mourn no more".


	6. Chapter 5

Something about Manuel Constantino's words left a mark on Lindsay.

"Mourn no more"

Lindsay recalled all those days at Sunday school. She recalled how Christ would simply say the word and the leper, the deaf-mute, the blind and the cripple would be healed.

She looked at the envelope on her desk. It was from her doctor. They were marked "test results". The stamp on the letter was dated five days ago yet the envelope was sealed. She had not opened the envelope since it arrived.

A crazy thought entered her head.

She frantically opened the envelope and read the results. Despite her biology background all those years learning forensic science, she couldn't make sense of the report. She dials her phone.

"Doctor Mason, it's Lindsay Monroe" Lindsay said.

"Lindsay, I was wondering when you'd call." A woman answers on the other line "So when are you coming over to talk about the results?"

"I um" Lindsay said, not knowing what to say "I was wondering we can just talk it out on the phone. If you don't mind."

"I'd like to run some more tests before I give a diagnosis, Lindsay" Dr. Mason said "Those results are inconclusive at best. I wouldn't want you to think there's nothing more we can do"

"Just…" Lindsay said, impatient "Just tell me what they mean"

The woman on the other line takes a deep sigh. "Alright. But these are all preliminary results, Lindsay. I can prescribe hormones…."

"Helen" Lindsay said, her voice about to break.

"Awww, Linds" Dr. Mason said --- her voice sounding more like Helen the friend than Dr. Helen Mason, the obstetrician. "You still can't have a baby".


	7. Chapter 6

Although Danny was shorter and thinner than Edward Bledel, his anger got the best of him and he was able to drag Bledel into the interrogation room and sit him down, almost painfully, a loud thud echoing in the room as the humongous Bledel slumps down the chair.

"What are you questioning me for, you got the scammer right outside!" Bledel shouted.

Danny wiped the sweat from his brow "I'm not too happy with you right now, Bledel, so you better shut up."

Bledel reaches for his pockets and shows him a small Ziploc bag filled with the circular paper, similar to what Danny recovered in Bledel's home. "It's these things that are causing it, these patches"

Danny gives him a suspicious look. "Where'd you get those?"

"From our bed" Edward answered "They fall off after a few hours. This is what that hack Manuel puts on Catherine's nape every time she attends those…. Healing masses."

"Healing masses?" Danny asked, as he sat across Bledel.

"Yeah, Manuel and his mother Ester hold them every Sunday around 6 at their apartment." Bledel said. "When Manuel and the patient pray, they kneel down in front of each other, and Manuel puts this patch on the patient's nape as they lock foreheads. It's supposed to cure them or something."

Danny looked at the Ziploc bag that Bledel handed him. "You're saying these…patches killed your girlfriend?"

"It made her crazy, made her see things and hear things" Bledel said. "A hallucinogen, you might call it. That's why she slashed her wrists"

"Mr. Bledel, that's another thing I'm still concerned with" Danny said "We haven't recovered the blade Catherine used to slash her wrists with. For all we know someone slashed her wrists for her"

"I didn't find a blade when I got there, just that boy" Bledel said, starting to cry "They're animals, you know. They took advantage of Catherine"

"And you didn't?" Danny said, his eyebrow raised.

"I loved Catherine" Bledel said "But she was sick, and she couldn't go to a hospital because the moment she signs any document, immigration is going to come down, pick her up, and ship her back to the Philippines. So she had to settle for these …. Mediums."

"Did you know that Catherine had chlamydia, Mr. Bledel?" Danny asked.

Bledel looked up, confused. "Chlamydia? No"

"Then I suggest you get yourself checked" Danny said. "You might have it too."

As Danny turns to leave, he remembers something and goes back to Bledel. "Can I see your hands please?"

Bledel shows him his hands. The fingers where big and fat and his palm was coarse and smooth.

And his fingernails appeared to have skin underneath them. Danny smiled.

"Sit tight, Mr. Bledel" Danny said as he opened the door "You just won a one-night stay in the slammer"


	8. Chapter 7

Lindsay held the test results in her hands. They've become wet from her sweaty palms. What on earth made her think that the words of a 12-year-old boy claiming he was Christ himself could make a difference.

She was getting impatient. All these trips to Dr. Helen Mason, the hormone injections, the pills, the basal temperature she has to take every day. And she's not even married. She just wanted to know if she could ever have a child. Especially after what happened.

Lindsay often lived in her head. As she sat in her office at the NYPD, her thoughts drowned the busy tapping of footsteps and beeps and hoots of the machines. Her thoughts would first be images --- faces of people. But then they would be talking --- thoughts to images to voices. And then the images would go away. All that's left is the voices.

"Are you alright?"

How many times has Lindsay heard those words --- with that voice --- in the year and a half that she had spent with the NYPD? Not enough.

Danny sat on his swivel chair in front of her. Lindsay just looked at him for a while, not knowing what to say. But her hands moved quickly, shoving the test results in her pocket.

"Nothing, uh…" Lindsay said "Just bad news from home"

"You want to talk about it?" Danny asked.

Lindsay just chuckled. Danny just keeps on trying, she thought. She can't help but respect his persistence. Even though Danny knew damn well what she would say.

"Not really" Lindsay answered. She turned all business-like and looked at the folder in Danny's hand "What you got there?"

"Results from trace on the sticky substance" Danny said "It's on Catherine's nape, it's on the circular paper I recovered on the scene, and it's on the patches that Edward Bledel gave me"

"What is it?" Lindsay asked. Danny hands her the folder.

"Paroxetine. An anti-depressant drug. Or a version of it, it's only about a 90 match to pure Paroxetine" Danny said.

"Isn't that the controversial drug tested in London? The one that causes violent behavior?" Lindsay asked.

"Yeah, I read about that too" Danny said. "Not only does it cause violent behavior, it often causes violent behavior towards oneself. --- suicide"

"And Edward Bledel claims that Manuel Constantino is using this drug in his healing masses?" Lindsay said.

"Gives us probable cause" Danny answered "Enough for a warrant to search their place"

Lindsay slouched on the chair, in deep thought. Danny saw disappointment in her face, like she had been betrayed.

"What are you thinking?" Danny said.

"It doesn't make sense" Lindsay answered "Why would he use a drug that causes violence when he heals people? Why use a drug at all?"

"Probably in lighter doses the drug just gives hallucinations" Danny answered "helps push the Christ-is-with-us illusion during the masses. We'll find out more when we search their apartment"

Lindsay looked out the hall. Ester and Manuel Constantino were escorted to a holding cell.

"You um" Lindsay said as she stood up and headed for the door "You take the apartment, I'm going back to Manuel".

Lindsay left the room, leaving Danny, confused.


	9. Chapter 8

Every night, Lindsay hears the same voices loud and clear, ringing in her head, resonating and bouncing off the sides of her face as she lay in her dark bedroom. She recognized each voice as they spoke the words.

"_You're three weeks pregnant"_

"_I'm sorry, I can't do this. Marilyn and I….."_

"_I know this doctor, out in Arkansas, quick and painless but it would cost you"_

"_I'll need you to sign these papers stating that the clinic has no responsibility…"_

Helen Mason's voice is usually the loudest.

"_The, um…. procedure… made your uterus a hostile environment for conception"_

And then she would hear her own voice, like it was an off-camera voice, faint and muffled.

"_What about surrogacy?"_

"_I want to test the viability of your ova first, Lindsay. I can prescribe hormones…"_

Gradually, the voices are drowned out, like the volume being turned down, until only a single voice fills her mind. Manuel's.

"_You have suffered too… It has been years"_

"_Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted"_

"_Mourn no more"_

Her ringing cellphone startles her. She looks at the caller ID. It was Danny.

"Hey Lindsay" Danny spoke on the other line "We found another body. Dead girl, Filipina".

Lindsay rubbed her eyes "Same M.O.?" Lindsay asked.

"Better" Danny answered. "Same suspect. The girl was found with Manuel Constantino"


End file.
